Waiting to Kid

Marcie: resting and ruminating.

For about a week now, Miss Marcie, our Saanen/Alpine-cross dairy goat has been a lady in waiting. (This may be the only stage of life where she is accused of being a lady; with her leadership qualities, bossy is more her style.) She'll browse with the herd, but she is quick to stop to rest and ruminate. On hot days she's often breathing hard, although she does not seem to be in distress.

Her figure is robust, round and full. Last Sunday, based only on her size and breathing, I decided she must be close to kidding and separated her from the herd. For a couple of reasons, I stuck close by all day. Her herd objected to being ejected from the home pasture, and spent much of their day clustered along the fence as close as they could get to the farm's Dairy Queen.

One reason that I stuck close was that the last time she kidded, Marcie needed help. By the time her dead twins were delivered, she had weakened considerably. I do not want to risk losing her.

The other reason is that last year she tested positive for Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE), a disease that she can pass along to her kids--especially through the colostrum provided in their first day's milk. I want to be close by when she kids this time to whisk her kids away without even allowing her to lick them dry in order to prevent disease transmission. If she has doe kids, we'll want to raise them to join the dairy herd, so keeping them disease-free is important. If she has bucklings, their future will lie on someone's dinner table, so the transmission of a disease that might impact their joints late in life is of no consequence--they won't be living the three or five years it might take the disease to settle in.

Marcie's herd spent the day trying to be reunited with their matriarch.

If Marcie has doe kids, we will have to decide whether to bottle raise them or not. Since Marcie came to us as a bottle-raised doe who identifies closely with her humans and strives to be the center of our attention, we are a bit leery of bottle-raised kids. However, we have had much luck with getting our dairy does to play nursemaid to any kid, although this begins on the milking stand and may never carry into pasture behavior. Since I would be happy to have little does running eagerly to the milking stand, I expect we will try to go that route.

First, of course, Marcie needs to kid. The day I spent with Marcie in the pasture over the weekend was long enough that my neck and shoulders were sunburned in the evening--a rare occurrence for me. Since then, I've regained my sanity and understand that being heavy with kids does not necessarily mean a doe is anywhere close to her delivery time. For now,  I will continue to check on Miss Marcie frequently and watch for stronger signs of imminent kidding.